WHO and WHOM

Who and whom are interrogative pronouns. Many people live their lives without using WHOM at all, thinking that whom should be used in formal situations only. Well, things are not that simple and if you want to speak English properly, then you need to know about the usage of both WHO and WHOM.

WHO

The rule is:

We use WHO in the subject position in a sentence:

Who bought you that ring?

WHOM

We use WHOM in the object position:

The man whom you invited to dinner.

We also use WHOM after prepositions:

For whom the bell tolls.

To whom you want to talk?

How can you tell whether to use WHO or WHOM?

It’s simple! If your pronoun can be replaced with ’he’ or ’she’, then use WHO. If it can be replaced with ’him’ or ’her’ or any other object pronoun, then use WHOM.

Who took my pen? (He/she took my pen – subject)

Whom is the book about? (About him – object)

More example sentences:

• This is the man who sold us a house.
• This is the man to whom we own money.
• Sheila was someone with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
• Laura is a girl who always drives carefully.
• Simon was happy because all the friends whom he invited came to the party.
• Who let you play outside without a warm jacket?
• The actor whom we saw on TV last night is sitting over there. 
• People who don’t care about environment will be punished.
• Jack met a girl whom he presumed worked at the cafe and asked her for a cup of coffee.

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